SysAdmin Day

What is a SysAdmin?

A system administrator is a professional practitioner of IT Administration, which is concerned mainly with the design, construction, and maintenance of computer systems and networks.

Here’s a bunch of tasks IT pros do that you might not have even realized:

Unpack the server for this website from its box, installed an operating system, patched it for security, made sure the power and AC were working in the server room, monitored it for stability, set up the software, and kept backups in case anything went wrong.

Install the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself to bring the Internet to your computer.

Scripting or light programming, project management for systems-related projects, supervising or training computer operators, and being the consultant for computer problems beyond the knowledge of technical support staff.

When your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working, you can thank your SysAdmin. They make sure your computer is functioning in a healthy way on a healthy network. They take backups to guard against disaster (both human and otherwise), hold the gates against security threats and crackers (not the salty, crumbly kind), and they keep the printers going no matter how many copies of the tax code someone from accounting prints out.

A SysAdmin worries about spam, viruses, spyware, as well as power outages, fires and floods.

When a server goes down at 2 a.m. on a Sunday, your SysAdmin is paged, wakes up, and goes to work.

A sysadmin is a pro who plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks. Why? To get you your data, help you do your work, and bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality.

When is the SysAdmin Day?

The Last Friday of July!
Sysadmin Day is a 24 hour event, for the entire Last Friday of July.